One Child
by moogleizer
Summary: Years after the Host Club members have grown apart, one little boy will teach them that friendships and memories really do last forever.
1. 50 Words for Rain

**Yes, this is (formerly) Lilac24, not a story thief, I promise. Yes, this is the edited version of One Child. Heavily edited. Heavily heavily edited. For a more thorough explanation of the editing, please see my profile. If you don't mind the editing one bit, proceed with abandon. As you like. **

**Disclaimer: **_Even after all these years, I have failed to purchase the rights to Ouran High School Host Club._

* * *

In the middle of mother's desk rest two cherished pictures, each one of them preciously framed. One is of himself on the day of his birth, a small, pink, peach-looking thing swaddled in yellows and pastel blues, sleeping oblivious in his too-young mother's arms; (like an Easter egg_, _he thinks as he swings his legs, studying the world's first ever documentation of his existence).

The second picture is as familiar to him as the first, perhaps even more so. He knows it is cherished because mother speaks of it often. It was taken on the day she graduated.

_Graduate: to successfully complete a course of study._

He mouths the word to himself and ponders its application to the scene before him, frozen forever behind the little square pane of glass. There are seven people squashed together between the four borders of the frame; in the absolute center, and most obvious to him, stands mother, looking positively annoyed—by what, he wonders? By the twins beside her, each with an arm draped over her shoulders as they (as mother says each time) "grin like fools"? He doesn't think so, since she only ever speaks of them fondly. Nor does he think it the fault of the tall one behind her, the one called Mori, nor of Hani smiling on his shoulders. It could not possibly be because of black-haired Kyouya, who stands off to the left like a shadow, arms folded tightly across his chest, as distant from the others in his eyes as he is in his body. That leaves only the one called Tamaki, a golden-haired and bright-eyed man standing off to the right who seems almost to glow as he winks and proffers a rose (of all things, a rose!) to the camera; the little boy does not think it is that man's fault, either.

The source of mother's apparent irritation, he muses, must be that, very much like himself, she does not appreciate having to stand for photographs. It's creepy, he thinks, staring into a cold glass eye that can imitate a person's likeness in one blink. He supposes that mother must think the same. Why else would she look so irate whilst surrounded by people she loves?

Satisfied that he has discerned the answer, he swings himself around in the swivel chair and hops the short distance to the floor. There is another part to the story, he knows, fragments picked up from mother's skimming. Something about a party that was supposed to happen, but never did. Something about mum waiting for a phone call that never came. It's a shame, he thinks, the fact that she never saw any of those people again. It's been six years—about as long as he's been alive.

He is pondering this point when, at 6:30PM exactly, mother walks through the office door. Right on cue, as she always is.

Her boss, Mrs. Izuno, enters behind her. They approach mother's cubicle together. This is unexpected.

As if in response to his frown, both mother and Mrs. Izuno laugh.

"Nothing to worry about, Haruo," Mrs. Izuno assures. Scoops him up, kisses the top of his head. "I just have a few more things to go over with your mum, and then you're both off home, alright?"

He likes Mrs. Izuno, even if she smells too sharply of vanilla. She is kind, with hair like an un-sheared sheep, and ever since he began coming to the law-firm after school she has been lending him 3D puzzles to play with while he waits for mother to be done with work. There is a half-constructed model of the Great Pyramids askew on the floor even now. It is half-finished on purpose, and Haruo is quite proud of it. The way it is now, the puzzle-model resembles miniature ruins.

Mrs. Izuno leans in close, her voice low but still loud enough for mother to hear, "Do you know what, Haruo? For being so very patient, I'll convince mom here to stop for ice cream on your way back. Sound fair?"

_Conspiratorial: a combination of persons for a secret, unlawful, or evil purpose._

Mother had gotten him, among other things, a dictionary for his last birthday (for always asking questions, questions and more questions), and Mrs. Izuno's tone of voice reminds him of that word.

He nods emphatically. Conspiracy or not, wicked or not, there is ice cream on the line. Mother might not like sweets so much, but he certainly has no quarrel with them. As Mrs. Izuno sets him down, he elects not to look in mom's direction, in case her face should express any displeasure with the idea of an ice cream run.

"You'll spoil him, Mrs. Izuno," mother chides.

"Pah. He's a good kid. A great kid. Hell, I'd almost adopt him. Excuse my language, little man."

_Hell: the place or state of punishment of the wicked after death; Gehenna; Tartarus; Hades._

Why would she need to be excused for stating the name of a place?

"He deserves some spoiling once-in-awhile," Mrs. Izuno goes on, "and besides, today's a day for celebration. So celebrate a little! It'll be on me."

Mother looks shocked, like she could protest. He speaks up before she gets the chance.

"Is it your birthday, Mrs. Izuno?" he asks.

"No way, not for another seven months. Don't try to make me any older than I already am, kiddo."

"A holiday, like Christmas?"

"No, no, nothing like that. This celebration's special for your momma, the best intern I've ever had. I intend to officially hire her when she passes the bar tomorrow."

"_If_ I pass the bar," mother murmurs.

"_When_ she passes the bar," Mrs. Izuno repeats.

Mother smiles, blushes, shakes her head. "I've had wonderful guidance."

To which Mrs. Izuno pooh-poohs.

_Bar: a relatively long, evenly shaped piece of some solid substance, as metal or wood, used as a guard or obstruction or for some mechanical purpose._

He is thoroughly confused. Mother has to pass an obstruction? Like a test?

"Don't worry about it, kid," says Mrs. Izuno, ruffling his hair. "You'll pop a blood-vessel, you keep making strained faces like that. Just go home, enjoy your ice cream, and come tomorrow morning, before you go to school, give your mum a big kiss and tell her to kick butt."

"Whose butt is she kicking?"

"Jeez, you're a serious one, aren't you? Just wish her luck, okay?"

He nods. It's silly, he thinks, the act of "wishing luck," but it's very easy to do. Anyway, it seems to be generally appreciated.

"I'll wish her luck," he promises.

"Excellent." Turning to mother, "Now, about your imminent job-offer..."

* * *

How her boss can talk. A kind lady, warm-hearted, brilliant, compassionate to a fault, but a right magpie if Haruhi ever met one. Never mind that she is the number one lawyer in Japan.

Haruhi nods and nods as Yoshiko Izuno talks and talks and talks. Occasionally she shoots glances at her poor son, sitting on the swivel chair, falling asleep over the small, red pocket-dictionary she'd gotten him for his sixth birthday three weeks ago. Funny, she thinks, how much he loves that dictionary. She wonders how much vocabulary he is actually able to retain. Sometimes it seems as though he understands everything; at other times, he looks so extraordinarily baffled that Haruhi is compelled to meet with his teacher to find out if he seems alright during class. According to his grades and his teacher's high praises, he is rather a sight more than "alright." Haruhi can only suppose that it's a mother's lot to worry with or without reason.

As she watches him, his gray eyes flutter, his head rolls forward, he jolts upright. After a matter of seconds, his eyes flutter again. And repeat. At this moment, Haruhi wants nothing more than to take him home, feed him dinner, bathe him, get him to bed. She's not concerned about his homework (not terribly, anyway); he almost always finishes it at school. What she _is _concerned about is her father. Ranka would be waiting up for them, worrying his head off no doubt.

And it's no wonder, she muses, looking at her boy now. There is much to worry about. His size, for one thing—what a tiny child she made! For a six-year-old he looks more like four, a babyround face bobbing atop a body short and narrow. Too narrow, she sometimes fears, but no matter how much she encourages him to eat he tends to do little more than pick at a few choice foods (usually not the rice, the greens or the meats, but the sweet beans, the tofu, sometimes the fish) before setting aside his chopsticks and declaring himself too full to go on. Even her father has precious little luck in that department. Lactose intolerant too, yet the child loves ice cream—oh, does he ever love ice cream, no matter what kind of bellyache it gives him.

There's also the matter of his skin. So pale, people often think him ill and neglected. He does not bruise easily, but when he does bruise, it's an ugly sight. It would bother her if not for the fact that his father was (is, she corrects herself; he's still alive) equally pearl of skin.

"…oka? Are you listening, Fujioka?"

"Hmmmn? Er, sorry. Could you repeat that?"

Mrs. Izuno laughs. Thank god she is a forgiving woman.

"I know, I know, I've kept you too long already. Look, the poor kid's falling out of his chair."

Indeed he is. Haruhi reaches out and snatches her son up before he manages to slide out of the swivel seat. He is fast asleep on her shoulder. So light.

"Ah, what a good looking kid," comments Mrs. Izuno. "He looks just like you. There's no mistaking him. Doesn't quite have your eyes, though. Hair's darker, too."

Father's eyes, Haruhi broods, a pang and a flutter in her stomach. Father's hair.

It had been only a night; one breath, one moment with the man she loved. She loves him still. How foolish she had been to take her friends—to take her love—for granted. Even so, she has the gift he gave her, a life more precious to her than anything. Haruo Fujioka, her beautiful son.

"Okay, for the kid's sake I'll wrap this up."

Haruhi floats back to the present in a haze. Mrs. Izuno has a file folder in her hand, one that seems to have materialized out of nowhere. She spreads it out on Haruhi's desk.

"This is the first case I'd like to give you, Fujioka. It's not huge, but I think it's sufficient to test your mettle. Our client is one Kaname Nakamura, eighteen-years-old, recently a father. He wants custody of his newborn daughter, but his girlfriend, probably soon to be ex-girlfriend, wants to give the baby up for adoption. What do you think?"

Without missing a beat, "The child deserves her real father if he wants her, even if he is a bit young."

_I was young once too, after all._

A wide smile from Mrs. Izuno. "My thoughts exactly, Fujioka. My thoughts exactly."

* * *

"Ready for that ice cream, champ?"

Mother's words reach him as if from a great distance—across a canyon; across an ocean; from above the ocean while he sinks beneath it. When he wakes he is on mother's shoulder. She smells of coffee and of ink, of lilies in the rain. She is warm.

They are outside in the dark (how long has it been?), and the air is heavy with an almost-storm. The weight of it makes him sticky and uncomfortable; he squirms to be released. Mother sets him down on the sidewalk. He still has the dictionary clutched tightly in his left hand. This he shoves into the pocket of his too-big jacket. It is Papa's jacket, in fact, Grandpa Ranka. A torn and frayed old cloth, gray and soft, he wears it even in summer, when only fools wear jackets, because he doesn't want to hurt Papa's feelings. Mother has tried many times to talk him out of it. Papa has tried many times to talk him out of it. It doesn't matter what they say. He wears Papa's old jacket everywhere.

"You're drowning in that thing, Haru," mother clucks, tugging at the jacket sleeve. "You sure you want that on right now? I'll hold it for you if it's too hot."

Haruo shakes his head fervently. No, he will not take it off.

Mother shrugs. "Suit yourself," and takes his hand.

Haruo's favorite ice cream shop is close enough to reach by foot. He would run to it, he knows the way so well, but mother grips him tight. And so he ambles. Rain falls as they walk, slow, soft rain, a misting drizzle. There is a word for this type of rain, Haruo knows. Mother taught it to him once, but he does not remember it now. E-something.

_Ena?_ he wonders. _Eko?_ _Ebi?_

He giggles at his last guess. There are so many words for rain. Which is the one he's looking for? Not _kosame_, which is merely small rain. Not _yuudachi_,which is a sudden unexpected rain in the evening time (although, he supposes it is also that). His lips purse. He purses them until they feel like raisins. He purses them until they ache. It does not help him remember.

At the crosswalk, the green man flashes for them to cross. Haruo tugs, but mother holds him back.

"Look both ways," she commands.

Haruo looks between mother's face and the flashing green man.

"I know the walk-signal is on, love," says mother, patient, smiling, "but you still need to look both ways."

Complying, he gazes left, right, left again. On one side, a few cars lined up, waiting; on the other, empty road, pedestrians, lamplights. Mother nods approval. He matches her step as they walk into the street. He only just remembers the word he is looking for when the shrill screech and the panicked horn blast cut through the buzzing citysound like cries of alarm.

Two hulking shapes, beasts of metal, spinning, sliding towards them.

Mother screaming nonononononono. Her hands knotting into his jacket. Lifting him. Shoving him so he flies, hard and far. Loud _crraaaccck_ as his shoulder hits the edge of the sidewalk on the other side of the crossing. He rolls and rolls. Another _krriiik! _as his head bumps the streetlight pole. Red fires and white fires blurring his eyes. Metallic ringing in his ears.

What was the word he wanted? That word for rain that is mist?

His head hurts.

Where is mother?

His arm hurts. He wants to sleep.

_Don't sleep_, someone pleads. _Don't sleep_!

There are so many faces now, so many blurs. All surrounding him, staring, poking, shaking.

_Don't sleep!_

He wants to sleep.

Goodnight, mother, he says, or thinks he says, but he doesn't recognize his own voice.

_Enu_, he thinks, sinking, fading, but he is pleased to remember. The word is _enu_.

Misty rain.

* * *

_**~Chapter 1st: End~**_


	2. I Alone

**moog: A bit shorter, slightly more direct, leans towards the dramatic...well, I guess dramatic is nothing new. Sorry for the delay. The days move more quickly and more seamlessly than I'd like to believe.**

**Disclaimer: **_All I own are these words, and only just._

* * *

_I. _

Start with an image. Any image, because starting is always the hardest part. Once you begin, the rest flows, almost effortlessly.

Kaoru sets pencil to paper for the fifth time. Pressure builds at his temples. He tries to ignore it.

What to start with?

Collar, double lapels, low v-neck with small buttons.

His head throbs.

Large buttons? No buttons?

No lapels?

Clicking his tongue, he smears the tentative lines with an eraser. What was he thinking? He doesn't even like lapels. Better if the collar is high and wide, or loose and low so that it cascades down the front of the wearer's chest. But "casual" is not the theme of their mother's new line. Neither, he thinks sarcastically, is "elegant." He is meant to be designing fashionable clothes for office use, but what creativity is there in an office? All uniform, all bleak—no fun.

His mother would have had something different to say on the matter, he is sure, but he isn't so inclined to phone her up and ask for her opinion; not now, when he's meant to be doing her a favor; not now, when she and father are so happily celebrating their anniversary in Greece. He can already imagine how that conversation is likely to go.

"I trust your judgment," she'd say, and that'd be the end of that.

He sighs, sets his pencil down, runs his hands over his face. He is tired and jetlagged—he flew in to Japan from Paris on a red-eye yesterday morning, didn't stop to rest before starting work again.

That's what he gets for being fool enough to promise five new designs by the end of the day. All day and all night up, working, and nothing to show for it. A few sleeve and pattern sketches here, a handful of notes on colors and material there, but nothing consolidated. Forget five pieces. He's loath to even come up with one. After nearly two years of focusing primarily on his work as a makeup artist, he is sorely out of practice.

Coffee. He needs coffee, and maybe some fresh air, sunlight. Holing up in the studio for nine hours had done nothing to stimulate his creativity. And anyway, he's got to do something about this headache.

_Sleep_, urged a voice inside his head, at which Kaoru laughed aloud. Sleep? There was no time for that. No, coffee would have to do.

The halls of his parents' sprawling home are mostly dark as he steps out of the studio (what time is it?). At once the world spins. He hovers, buckles, catches himself on the doorframe. A quick glance around to be sure no one saw. All is silence. Thank god. From here on out, one slow step at a time.

Somehow, he survives the stairs.

Too many steps, he thinks, counting each one, missing his top-story flat in Paris (twenty-two, twenty-three), missing his private elevator (thirty-six, thirty-seven).

Forty-five steps.

By the time he reaches the bottom, he is practically hanging from the railing. How had these steps never bothered him in his youth? He feels like an old man now (laughing), dizzy, weak in the knees.

_Sleep_, says that back-of-the-mind-voice yet again, and yet again he scorns it.

"Too busy," he mutters. "Coffee," he mutters.

Drags himself to the dining room. The sun is deep gold and new. Early morning, then. Sunrise. Hikaru sits at the long table, coffee mug in hand, newspaper open before him, wire-rim glasses sliding towards the tip of his tall nose (when had he started wearing those?). Kaoru stumbles over, takes the coffee. Chugs.

"Good morning to you too," says Hikaru. His voice bothers the stagnant morning. He takes one look at Kaoru and frowns. "Sleep," he demands.

Kaoru groans. "Not you too."

Although he need only glance at Hikaru to know that his twin has not slept either. Faint shades of deep purple under glazed amber eyes, drooping eyelids. How amusing, thinks Kaoru, nearly giggling at the notion that looking at Hikaru is like looking in a mirror. He scowls. How annoying, he thinks immediately after.

The pressure at his temples pools into the center of his skull. He takes up the newspaper to distract from the incessant throbbing. Something about some pedestrian accident. Something involving a big-shot American and some Japanese citizens. Two casualties, both of them lawyers—one of them quite a big deal in Japan, apparently, though the second lawyer is as yet unidentified, as yet unnamed. The American in critical condition. Droll stuff. He sets the paper aside.

_Seeing in a flash, buried beneath a sudden stab of pain, easier days, a small brunette with wide, earnest eyes, a brilliant and determined girl who dreamed of one day being a lawyer like her mother. _

When he comes to, Hikaru's arms are around him, looped under his shoulders, holding him just off the ground. Good thing, thinks Kaoru, or I might float away. Must've slid out of the chair.

Hikaru speaks, his words low and fast. Difficult to understand. He shouldn't look so scared. Kaoru giggles. His brother sneers.

"Okay," mumbles Kaoru. "I'm okay. Tired is all."

_Just hold me, just like this. Let me stay here. Let me sleep here._

In one fluid movement, Hikaru lifts him into a piggyback.

How like a child he feels, weightless and warm. His head rests in the crook of his brother's neck. Scent of aftershave and shampoo, and beneath all that the scent of skin. Hikaru's skin. Hikaru's warmth. Nothing like it in the world. Nothing like the strength of Hikaru's muscles moving, pulling, working beneath him as Hikaru walks. How safe he feels. How safe.

Kaoru is tossed unceremoniously amidst a mess of sheets. Sharp reminder that his twin is blatantly indelicate when irritated. Beside him, the bed sinks. He blinks. Hikaru's face is inches away, and he is positively glowering. It's the same expression he used to wear when they were children, when Hikaru used to sneak into Kaoru's bed after having a nightmare. That same willfully defiant look, eyes bright with lingering fear—so nostalgic.

Kaoru reaches over, grips his brother's hand.

"Really," he assures him, "I'm fine."

Hikaru scoffs. "If you die of exhaustion, I'll shake you until you wake up, and then I'll kill you."

So dramatic. How could he help but laugh? So, so dramatic. Tired, yes. Stressed, definitely. Dying? Not even close. At his last check-up, his doctor had told him that he was so healthy it was boring. He is ages away from dying. Ages and ages.

He tries to tell Hikaru. He finds he cannot.

* * *

_II. _

He's laughed himself to sleep.

So pale, so perfectly serene, like the painting of a beloved corpse. It's too sinister.

Hikaru passes his hand over his brother's face, feeling for fever. If anything, Kaoru is cold. What to do about this hopeless workaholic? There seems no way to rein him in.

It's been this way for too long. Kaoru works and works, and then he works a little more. He works until his body shuts down, and as soon as he recovers even slightly, he starts working all over again.

Mother is worried about it. Father is worried about it. The household help are all worried about it. Hikaru is petrified. When had it begun?

After high school, he thinks, but that's not right.

Right after high school they'd tackled university, each pursuing different areas of design arts. Kaoru gravitated towards style and beauty (and what a genius he turned out to be). Hikaru found that his interests leaned more towards web and journal design (he wasn't so bad either, if he could say so himself).

Naturally their mother grilled into them everything she knew about fashion. With all her connections, all they had to do was display an ounce of their talents to make a name for themselves in the fashion world. By the time they were twenty they'd started their own clothing line, and on occasion they designed clothes for their mother's company, for which she paid them generously (no matter how much they declined).

Every step they took, they took side-by-side. Kaoru and Hikaru, glued together the same as they had been before the Host Club. They'd retreated from the wide world hand-in-hand, wrapped in one another's voiceless understanding. No one could break through their barrier, not like before. Not like Haruhi Fujioka had.

Haruhi Fujioka.

Might she be the reason that Kaoru is retreating from him now? Is this revenge for that time years ago that Hikaru let an outsider into their world, the "World of Us"?

Ridiculous. Kaoru may have been so childish once (both of them were), but not now. Now there is something else, something souldeep that Kaoru refuses to share. Something that compelled him, two years ago, to sink so deep into the World of Us that it became simply the World of I Alone.

What was it?

What _was _it?

Hikaru has never felt so rejected, so helpless, in all his life. His throat knots. He swallows.

The whole reason their mother had called them back to Japan (Kaoru from Paris, Hikaru from New York) was to get both of them to relax a little—mostly Kaoru, but, as she explained to Hikaru, it might be beneficial if both of them could be together for a time. The five-design-favor was just a front; convincing Kaoru to do anything recently became impossible unless there was work involved. It was meant to be quick and easy work—fun, even, something to get his mind off of his career as a makeup artist for snappy actors and temperamental runway models. Clearly Kaoru had taken the bit job much more seriously than either Hikaru or their mother had anticipated.

And now this.

So cold, so pale, and laughing about it all as if he could care less. Kaoru always did have a cruel streak in him. Time only made it worse.

"Selfish bastard," Hikaru whispers.

Kaoru's sleeping face is disturbed not at all by the insult.

Hikaru moves a little closer. Kaoru's breath strikes his face—that, at least, is warm. He moves closer still, so close that their faces are nearly touching. It's been awhile since they've shared a bed like this. The comfort of it, the familiarity, is almost too much for him to bear. His chest tightens. He is furious. He is at a loss. What to do with all this love?

It is painful, much too painful, to watch his brother, the person he came into the world with, destroy himself like this.

Briefly, distantly, he wonders how the others are—that wild and giddy club president of ages ago, shadowed by his dark-eyed, spectacled minion (shadow king, they called him); the small senior with the lethal sweet-tooth and the even more lethal kick; the tall senior with a gaze that could kill.

And what about Haruhi? Did she achieve her dream in the end? Did she become a lawyer?

He sincerely hopes so.

_At the very least_, he muses, drifting, drifting, _I hope they're happy. It'd be nice to see them all again._

Especially, he thinks, just before his eyes close, Haruhi Fujioka. To see her again would be one of the sweetest things in the world.

He dreams of her, then. He dreams of all of them—light, warm, fanciful dreams. Endless summers. Summers that ended too soon. Half a secret someone told him, something he almost remembers and almost understood, but as quickly as he nearly recalls it, the half-thought recedes to the frayed fringes of his memory. He cannot even put a face to the secret's speaker.

When he wakes, Kaoru is not beside him. He is sitting by the window, knees up, tablet out, madly scribbling.

Working again. Always, always working.

Kaoru glances up at him, smiles. Hikaru's chest tightens.

* * *

**_~Chapter 2nd: End~_**


End file.
